Monday 15.4: Fran

Monday. Fran. Time 3.58. Cashout. 200 sit-ups.

Phew, third lady in a row, and this was the roughest, by a long mile! Fran is the most classical benchmark workout and it was actually one of the first workouts I ever did about a year ago. I was anxious and scared about this wod already yesterday. I've had butterflies in my stomach and it was difficult to get myself together for completing this one =)

Thrusters

Fran. Time 3.58.

• 21-15-9
• Thrusters, 42.5kg
• Pull-ups

After warm-up I was walking around the Box and doing this and that before I decided to get a grip and select my phone's wodbox application. No more wondering, just tap the start button to here 3-2-1-GO! I went unbroken the first round (round of 21's) of thrusters, same with the pull-ups. On the second round I did 10 thrusters, lowered the bar, grabbed it again and nailed the rest of the 5 reps. I might have been able to push it through but the added value was nowhere in sight as I thought pull-ups would have been very difficult after that. Better this way.

In pull-ups I did 7 in a row, then maybe sets of about 3-4 reps. Hard to say afterwards how many reps I was able to complete in a row from this point on. However, I am proud of myself for how quickly I forced myself to grab the pull-up bar after having to drop down from it.

Last set of thrusters (round of 9's) went unbroken. At this point my forearms were screaming and it wasn't the most exciting thought of going back to pull-up bar. I did some mental game and told myself it's only 9 more reps, that's nothing, just do it man! I jumped back there, pulled myself over the bar in a few sets. Final time 3.58.

Done

I had to walk the pain off for some minutes around the gym. It helped to my legs but the long burn in forearms is something you simply won't find a shortcut. You just have to suck it up and deal with the pain. The pain is something extraordinary and usually only comes through Fran. The combination of thrusters and pull-ups is somehow kinky and brings that tingle in the forearms. I also saw some bright spots in my field of vision after the workout. Nice.

Compare to my previous Fran, back in August 2012. There's also a video included from the entire workout. There's also Toni's first Fran available. I'm extremely happy to my result this time and was able to cut 1.33 from my previous time. And the quality of movement standards is way better than it was in the beginning of my crossfit training. At that time, I wasn't that aware of how deep front squats should be and how the presses should be locked overhead. Same with the pull-ups, I didn't know how to kip in the beginning and that's the reason why I wasn't able to extend my elbows to full extension. Still, I'm proud how I did my first Fran's but today's quality was far beyond those times =)

Cashout. Sit-ups with short rest between sets.

• 4 x 50 sit-ups

Together with Toni we did some abs to finish the training. I did 4 sets of 50 sit-ups, Toni did 3 sets.

Toni's workouts. Metcon, time 18.16. Cashout. 3 x 150 sit-ups

• 10 rounds of:
• 15 deadlifts, 60kg
• 15 push-ups

This workout was on the main site a couple of days ago. Here you'll see how the main site's athletes dominated the workout. The deadlift was high-rep light-weight version but the amount of push-ups was sick. Toni, reveal what type of workout was at hand today!

Toni's skills training for starters, HSPU